


Take Me To Church

by orphan_account



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Era-typical homophobia, Happy Ending, Kind of a songfic, M/M, and this happened, i listened to take me to church for literally two hours, mmhmm, set in the 1900s, where the heck did this come from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 16:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3536246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>He first saw him at the memorial for one of his father’s distant relations.</em><br/><em>He stood out, coloured cheeks and wild golden curls against pale skin and slicked dark hair. He drew his gaze like a magnet; while the priest lectured about the dead’s respect and perfection, his eyes were caught upon the little smile playing about the man’s mouth, the way his tawny eyes glowed even beneath a rainy sky, the crookedness of his tie and the wrinkle in his black coat.</em> </p><p>All he wanted was the sunlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me To Church

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Hozier's most incredible song by the same title.
> 
> I literally have no idea where this came from

 

**_My lover’s got humour_ **

**_He’s the giggle at a funeral_ **

**_Knows everybody’s disapproval_ **

**_Should have worshipped him sooner_ **

_He first saw him at the memorial for one of his father’s distant relations._

_He stood out, coloured cheeks and wild golden curls against pale skin and slicked dark hair. He drew his gaze like a magnet; while the priest lectured about the dead’s respect and perfection, his eyes were caught upon the little smile playing about the man’s mouth, the way his tawny eyes glowed even beneath a rainy sky, the crookedness of his tie and the wrinkle in his black coat._

_When the priest mentioned in his doleful tone the deceased’s ‘benevolence’ and ‘bounteousness,’ the man gave a tiny snort, drawing glares which only intensified as his shoulders began to shake, his bowed head obscuring his vision._

_He seemed to feel the weight of the glares and looked up solemnly; his face was absolutely straight, and a slight redness even lingered about his eyes. He spouted some apologies in a grave tone, and the watchers’ attention returned to the priest._

_The tawny irises met his own; a crooked smile made them gleam, a swift wink gifted before he turned to face the vicar; the mousy woman beside him tugged sharply on his shoulder and hissed venomously in his ear, her eyes narrowing._

_For a brief moment, he wondered if the woman was his wife._

_The thought incurred more emotion than he expected, and perhaps more than legal._

**_If the heavens ever did speak_ **

**_He’s the last true mouthpiece_ **

**_Every Sunday's getting more bleak_ **

**_A fresh poison each week_ **

****

_Even as the days became longer, the nights shorter, he felt like any sunshine was absent from his existence. His family’s manor was huge – too huge – and echoed with memories of smiles and laughter and life; half of his family still lived there, but they seemed to have faded like old photographs._

_The only thing to help was alcohol, the spirits burning his throat and placing a fire within him to replace the soft warmth that had once existed there._

_He was summoned to his father’s office one Tuesday; he was being groomed as the heir to an empty company, inheritor of a desolate fortune. His father was conducting a business meeting, with the representative of an extremely influential man. He entered the darkly panelled drawing room to be faced with sparkling tawny eyes and a tugging smile._

**_'We were born sick'_ **

**_You heard them say it_ **

****

_His focus drifted through the entire meeting; like a wayward leaf he was caught by the breezy words and soft laughs. Even as the foundations of his fascination strengthened, his worry breached it with prompting tendrils, echoes of public addresses and newspaper articles and the chanting of crowds pushing at his mind with insistent fingers._

_Yet when the man asked him if they would meet again soon – asked him, not his father – he found himself agreeing._

 

**_My Church offers no absolutes_ **

**_She tells me, 'Worship in the bedroom.'_ **

**_The only heaven I'll be sent to_ **

**_Is when I'm alone with you_ **

_More and more people were charged with ‘gross indecency’. More and more stories of defilation by violent hordes surfaced in the news. More and more couples were charged by judges and sent to hospitals, to be lobotomized or treated with electric sparks._

_More and more days he found himself meeting with the smaller man._

_It was, largely, innocent; in the eyes of the law at least. The eyes of those who watched them, wandering through parklands or museums or streets, were a different matter; but the two ignored them in their surety, in their confidence, in their ignorance of the true horror of human nature._

_He forgot his worry in the hazel gaze, in the quirked smiles and soft laughs like sunshine through clouds. He revelled in the electrifying looks that he would cast when he thought that he wasn’t looking, in the warmth of his shoulder when it brushed against his own._

**_I was born sick,_ **

**_But I love it_ **

**_Command me to be well_ **

****

_He knew what they said; that there was something amiss with people like him, that it went against nature and God’s will, that it was a travesty, and dirty, and wrong._

_He did not believe it for one moment, because how could it be so wrong when he felt so right? How could something so terrible warm him from the crown of his head to the centre of his beating heart? How could his every smile, his every laugh and frown and twitch and touch fill him with such bliss if it was so awful?_

_The idea of his new feelings being unreturned was one he had long since accepted; he was content simply to be in the other man’s company, to simply watch as his face brightened and his mouth tilted. He was so embroiled in watching him, in fact, that he did not register the lingering glances or the dropping smiles, did not fully realise their true meaning._

**_Amen._ **

**_Amen._ **

**_Amen._**

 

_The other man broke one evening, when they were sitting in a warm silence in the lounge room. He was slumped on the plush couch, grateful for the soft cushions against his aching back; the other turned that tawny gaze upon him, and it was filled with such deep pain and fear and longing, so uncharacteristic and plainly wrong in eyes that were meant to be lit with happiness. He stood hesitantly, reaching to the other; he was nearly knocked back to the settee by the other’s embrace._

_He wrapped his arms around the smaller man and kissed him fiercely, hearing the shattering of the law in the back of the mind and not caring in the slightest._

 

**_Take me to church_ **

**_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_ **

**_I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_ **

**_Offer me that deathless death_ **

**_Good God, let me give you my life_ **

****

_Their meetings became, somehow, even more frequent; he ignored his father’s disapproval of his neglection of duty, his sister’s inquiries as to where he was spending his time, the whisperings beginning to stir within the opposing companies. T_ _he two remained largely complacent with their discretion, yet not to the point of folly._

 _He only wished, with an almost painful intensity, that they did not have to deny, did not have to hide; he wanted to give himself, the entirety of his being, to the man he loved. He wanted to do it publicly, so that there could be no lingering doubt; y_ _et the reports of burnings and hangings and imprisonment kept the words to the darkness of their meetings, in secluded corners of society, for no strength of wish could change human nature before it was well and ready._

**_If I'm a pagan of the good times_ **

**_My lover's the sunlight_ **

**_To keep the Goddess on my side_ **

**_She demands a sacrifice_ **

****

_His golden curls became all that was in his eye, even when miles separated them; his spice of cinnamon all he could scent, the warmth of his touch all he could feel, the sweetness of his breath all that he could taste._

_It was during one of their rare careless moments when someone unearthed their secret. It was when they sat closer than deemed necessary, together upon the couch where they had first confessed their hearts so many months ago._

_His sister had returned earlier than anticipated and come across them._

_She had stood frozen in the doorway as her eyes fell upon their embrace; she had turned tail and fled down the hall. With a terrible choking fear pressing down upon his lungs he had pursued, grasping her wrist and imploring her to keep their secret._

_Blue eyes had locked with blue as she had stopped dead, raking her gaze over the brother that she had thought she knew._

_She had, after an incredibly pregnant silence, quietly agreed, and slipped away without a further word._

_The smaller man had twined their fingers together as they watched her retreat, and for the first time they fully realised the way that this could end._

**_Drain the whole sea_ **

**_Get something shiny_ **

**_Something meaty for the main course_ **

****

_The days were getting darker as their fear grew, a poisonous parasite feeding off their love. The only shaft of sunlight was him, and even as they met less he clung to him more, craving the light in a sea of shadow._

_He and his sister visited their brother for the first time; his blank gaze and trembling fingers had made him wish for his partner by his side - yet even as the thought budded within his mind, the reminder of why his golden brother was leached of colour quashed it mercilessly._

_His brother was wheeled away, back to his empty room and his empty head and his empty heart, and the parasite gorged itself._

**_That's a fine-looking high horse_ **

**_What you got in the stable?_ **

**_We've a lot of starving faithful_ **

****

_His father was ailing, slipping away day-by-day. His responsibilities grew, his free time shrinking; the lines on his brow and beneath his eyes grew deeper with each new blow. A new opposition to the company rose. Its haughty owner seeming to glance at him once with those flat eyes and discern every single one of his secrets._

_He raised his chin and faced him down, thought of honey curls and tawny eyes like his own guardian angel, protecting his heart from the demons which lurked in the shadow._

**_That looks tasty_ **

**_That looks plenty_ **

**_This is hungry work_ **

****

_He felt to be balanced on the knife’s edge, hanging over a steep precipice with no support to speak of. Even the sunlight seemed to be waning as he drew away, smiles growing smaller, laughs becoming rarer. The silences became strained and all he could do was cling to rose-tinted memories of the past, to times when cares seemed like dust in the wind and love was all that mattered._

_He felt the jaws of society closing about him like a trap as the opposition watched him with a glacial ever-presence and more and more people were imprisoned for 'gross indecency'._

_The longing for the sunlight, true and bright and golden, seemed to be eating him from the inside._

**_Take me to church_ **

**_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_ **

**_I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife_ **

**_Offer me my deathless death_ **

**_Good God, let me give you my life_ **

****

_It came to him in the sharpest burst of clarity, one evening during one of their all-too-stiff silences._

_He was losing him._

_Without warning he stood, stepped forwards and dropped to his knees before where the smaller man sat. Taking his hand in both of his, he studied those dark eyes with a deeper intensity than he had in a long time; he saw the sparkle dulled, the warmth cooled, the glow muffled._

_He took a shaking breath and spoke. Spoke of the first time he saw him, the first time he watched his smile, heard his laugh, touched his fingers, felt his affection; he peeled away the walls that had grown around him, one by one, and watched his One with all that lay in his heart._

_He watched as the glow once more lit the brown, honing and brightening it back to the tawny that he had first fallen in love with._

_He’d placed a hand on his jaw, and a smile had quirked up his lips; and he began to hope that they, together, may be able to survive._

**_No Masters or Kings_ **

**_When the Ritual begins_ **

**_There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin_ **

_The illusion of hope was shattered within days._

_Cracks had spiderwebbed when the opposition approached him with the first gleam of emotion in his eyes that he had ever seen; they’d grown as his slim hand smoothly handed him an envelope. His world crashed down about his ears as his eyes scanned the contents, and he’d heard the ringing tinkling of the fragments falling about him as his gaze raised slowly to meet the others’ victorious icy one._

_He’d taken back the envelope with an air of finality, turned his back and thrown the demands that he had no choice but to accept over his shoulder._

_He didn’t accept._

**_In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene_ **

**_Only then I am Human_ **

**_Only then I am Clean_ **

****

_Twenty-three days later, the judge offered him a choice._

_He had refused to disclose the identity of the author of the letter presented to the jury; it was, however, undoubtedly addressed to him, and undoubtedly authored by a male. Besides, the perpetrator would be in another country by the time._

_He could not possibly get angry at him. Not now, not ever; not for leaving with only a letter, not for securing his future, not for being safe._

_It was all that kept him clinging to any vestige of sanity throughout the subsequent two years of sweat and grime and blood, of stone and mortar and grey skies. Of his father’s disgust. His sister’s tears. His brother’s death he only heard about six months after he bit the poisoned apple. The opposition rose within the ranks, and their company slowly lost shares as the money and interest dwindled._

_All that filled his mind was a pair of tawny eyes, glowing with laughter and soft with love._

**_Amen._ **

**_Amen._ **

**_Amen._ **

_It didn’t get better after his release. He returned to the mansion with calloused hands and desolate eyes to find it emptier than ever, moldering and dusting as his sister drifted through the vacant halls like a ghost. His father lay on his deathbed, a quill still gripped in his shaking fingers as he signed innumerable documents, ensuring the survival of his beloved company._

_He lingered by his bed as those clouded eyes met his, and a fierce pride sharpened the gaze as the dying man’s hand gripped his wrist with a bruising strength._

_He’d called him loyal, called him strong, called him determined. Called him son._

_The funeral was held within a fortnight, and this time there were no golden curls to brighten the darkness, only the dead weight of his sister on his shoulder as silent tears poured down her face._

_He couldn’t even weep. He was too empty._

**_Take me to church_ **

**_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_ **

**_I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_ **

**_Offer me that deathless death_ **

**_Good God, let me give you my life_ **

****

_To fill the emptiness he poured all into his company, meeting the cool smirk of the opposition with a burning fire and watching that complacent pride slip from his face like oil from water. The rival company was soon debunked, lost shares returned to his family as the money began to trickle back, as the manor was cleared of dust and mould and his father’s legacy was protected. The emptiness, hesitantly, began to ease; his sister began to smile once more, and weak strands of light weakly shafted through the clouds. It could never be sunlight – sunlight was far away – yet still it was light within the darkness._

_His sister’s smiles began to be wider and softer, and directed; directed at a golden man with warm brown eyes and a smile always ready to be returned. He stood by with pride in his eyes, one year later, when his sister joined hands with her love._

_He realised something as he watched._

_The writing in the letter hadn’t been his._

_He only just realised this smallest, most inconsequential of facts; yet it was enough, and his mouth quirked up by the smallest fraction as his sister embraced her new husband._

**_Take me to church_ **

**_I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_ **

**_I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_ **

**_Offer me that deathless death_ **

**_Good God, let me give you my life_ **

****

_The writing hadn’t been his._

_A glimpse of golden curls, bright against the grey asphalt._

_He hadn’t written it._

_Tawny eyes, widening and sparkling with impossible hope._

_He had never left._

_A smile, brightening the beloved face as he propelled himself into his arms._

_He was here, with him._

_He pressed his face into his soft hair, the scent of cinnamon wreathing about his nose as the sound of his choked laughter reached his ears._

_They may just survive._

_He drew back, grazing his fingers across the other man’s cheekbone, and stared into the eyes wet with tears as something settled within his heart, and he felt truly whole for the first time in years._

 

**_Amen._ **

**_  
_**

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> what did i just write *3*
> 
> I hoped you, um, liked this....?
> 
> Comments are always really, really, really appreciated :)
> 
> This is so sad wow


End file.
